Transport from Heidelberg, Heidelberg (Karlsruhe), Baden, Germany to Gurs, Camp, France on 22/10/1940

The deportation was carried out on October 22 and 23, 1940 during the 6th and 7th day of the Sukkot festival (Tabernacles). Beginning in the early morning hours, members of the Secret State Police and uniformed policemen appeared at the doors of apartments, old age homes, and hospitals and notified the Jewish residents that they were about to be deported. The deportees were told what they would be allowed to take with them and were given between 15 minutes and 2 hours to pack. They were usually not given any additional information, so the large majority of deportees were unaware of their destination. Most of the arrested Jews were completely surprised by the raid. Dozens committed suicide out of desperation. The authorities allowed for very few exemptions, even for sick people. Those who were unable to walk were brought on stretchers to the transport. The deportees from smaller communities were transported by bus or truck to assembly sites in larger towns and cities. Some testimonies mention that the deportees were forced to sign quitclaim deeds relating to all of their property which would become standard procedure for later deportations. Arrests were conducted nearly simulaneously in 137 communities in the Baden area and in more than 100 communities in the Palatinate. The complexity of the operation required not only precise planning and logistics, but also the assistance of a wide aray of officials and organizations that included the police, the military, the financial and census authorities, and many private businesses. Once the deportees were assembled, they were taken to nearby railway stations where they had to board trains comprising French passenger cars. The trains followed different routes to cross into French territory. During the stop at the former border crossing, the deportees’ Reichsmarks were exchanged for Francs. The trains then continued over occupied French territory towards Chalon-sur-Saône, one of the two train crossings into the Vichy zone. The French authorities had been led to believe that the trains carried French citizens who had been expelled from the Reich. Adolf Eichmann later stated that he went to the crossing in person to make sure that the trains were not rejected. He was successful. The Vichy authorities realized that they had been deceived only when the trains arrived at the next stop in Mâcon. They turned to the German authorities, but their requests to return the deportees were ignored. Confronted with the problem of finding a place to house more than 6,500 deportees, the Vichy government decided to move them into Gurs, a camp that had been used to imprison “undesirables”. The deportation trains were routed southwards towards Avignon and then to the west – until they reached the small railway station of Oloron-Sante-Marie, where the deportees were transferred to trucks and driven the last 15kms to the Gurs camp site. The transfer took hours and was conducted in pouring rain which had also turned the campsite into a mud pool. The luggage stayed behind and in many cases it took weeks until it was handed out. Upon arrival, the deportees were housed in overcrowded and often unfurnished barracks under difficult hygienic conditions....